Western Horsemanship

Horsemanship is a lot like Equitation. The difference is Equitation is always associated with english riding, and Horsemanship is the western version.

Horsemanship and Equation are like the riding version of Showmanship. The majority of the class is judged on the rider, but also how the horse responds to the rider. "Judging focuses on the rider’s body position, seat in the saddle and ability to control the horse."

Just like Equitation and Showmanship, horses enter the arena and line up tails to the rail. One at a time they step up to the first cone, wait for the judge to nod, then start their pattern. As always, they always look back at the judge been the pattern is finished and look for the nod again.

I never mentioned this before, but most classes (not only patterned ones, but pleasure classes, jumping classes, etc.) are often divided up into categories. Sometimes they are divided up into age groups (for instance, dressage is divided into Young Riders which is 21 and younger, Adult Amateur which is over 21 and Open). A majority of open shows are also divided by Walk/Trot and Walk/Trot/Canter.

At this show, there was a class for only Walk/Trot and Walk/Trot/Canter. Since one class included canter and the other didn't, there were two different patterns for the horsemanship class.

Since I went through all the steps with Equiation and Showmanship, I am going to skip over the individual parts of the pattern. Here are a few pictures form both of the patterns combined.

As you can see, Horsemanship follows the same general trends as Western Pleasure.

Here is a video of the walk/trot pattern.


Notice the rider's equitation (meaning, what she looks like in the saddle). She is sitting up straight, with her shoulders back, her back arched, her heels down, and her eyes up. Overall, she has a good position. Just as important, notice what very little she does to cue the horse and he responds decently well. These are the things that are important in Equitation and Horsemanship classes.

Also, here is a few examples of the walk/trot/canter pattern.

Again, the girl's have good position and the horses respond to very minimal cues.

Those are the basics for a Horsemanship class!

Questions? Just comment or e-mail labelle012@yahoo.com